


War-Marked

by Meridians_of_Madness



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Angst, Bullying, Camp Follower, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Hand injury, Laundry, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24769192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Meridians_of_Madness
Summary: A few universes over, the war in Heaven never stopped- it just got a new theater.The angels and the demons turned Earth into a battlefield, and Crowley goes spying for Hell behind enemy lines as a camp follower. He doesn't expect to find himself under the protection of a nervous lieutenant named Aziraphale.He doesn't expect a lot of things.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 73
Collections: IK Shenanigans





	War-Marked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unsmilingchuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsmilingchuck/gifts).



Crowley stared at Aziraphale and the apron in his hand in dismay.

“You know, lieutenant, I was rather expecting to do most of my work on my back.”

“Servicing the war machines?” asked Aziraphale blankly. “I can make the recommendation, but I'll tell you right now that Eruviel won't approve a demon who- who ...”

The penny dropped in slow motion, but it did drop, and Crowley watched, fascinated as always, as the blush rose up from Aziraphale's collar.

“Oh. You meant. Ah. Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” Crowley said, unable to resist a grin. “And since everyone thinks you've already had me, we could just keep on-”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. “Out of the question. I. That is. There is no reason for you to simply lie about my tent while I'm off seeing to my duties.”

“You could leave me tasks to do,” Crowley offered. “Whatever you like.”

“Oh, I do like a little clutter about, I don't really need- oh. You meant.”

“I did.”

Aziraphale ducked his head in a way that made Crowley want to snicker, but then he looked up, squaring his shoulders.

“Out of the question,” he repeated. “Your amnesty is contingent upon your service to me and to the company.”

“Service to you and the company _could_ mean-”

“But it doesn't. And if you are seen with the other camp followers, doing your bit, I'm sure that you'll be much more welcome in the encampment. At least, perhaps they'll be, ah … a little kinder?”

The angel's last words were hesitant, almost apologetic. Apparently he hadn't been as ignorant of the whispered taunts and threats as Crowley had guessed.

“It's not so bad, lieutenant,” Crowley said awkwardly. “Nothing more than what I expected when I crossed the line.”

“It _is_ bad. And it's understandable, if I keep you in here like my personal- Anyway. I spoke with Oladiel. They are happy to have you on laundry duty. It's out in the open, full of people. I'm sure you'll get on quite well.”

“Oh, but laundry's so tiring,” Crowley whined.

_And nowhere near the tents of the ranked officers, no opportunity at all to do any useful reconnaissance._

“You could loan me out some of your friends, Hanniel or Opheniel, maybe? I'm a pretty dab hand at tidying even if you don't need it.”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale said, and there was enough force to his voice that Crowley blinked.

“You are _not_ going to clean anyone's tent alone. No. The laundry will be a far better place for you.”

Crowley blinked at Aziraphale's vehemence, and there was a different kind of heat to the angel now, the closest to righteous rage he had ever seen the diffident lieutenant get.

 _Ah. Apparently he's heard some of those_ other _whispers as well,_ he thought, ignoring the odd little hollow it put in his belly. _Doesn't care for them, I see._

“It's really fine,” Crowley said almost gently.

“It's _not_ ,” Aziraphale replied, tugging at his uniform sleeves. “You are going to the laundry today. That is final.”

He hesitated.

“So. Please. Take the apron?”

He looked so forlorn that Crowley took it with a sigh. It was clean black linen, sturdy and with pockets. Aziraphale must have purchased from one of the market women in the town nearby rather than requisitioning one from the quartermaster.

“You really don't have to sound so soppy, lieutenant,” he said, shaking his head. “Makes me think I can say no to you, get into all kinds of badness.”

“Oh, I'm sure I can handle it,” Aziraphale said with a wry grin, and inwardly, Crowley winced, because he was absolutely sure that Aziraphale couldn't.

*

Laundry didn't start out so badly. Oladiel didn't give him more than a cursory glare and put him on the line at the large copper cauldrons, soapy water kept bubbling with packed charcoal at a low heat. The clothes chucked into the copper cauldrons were stirred with thick sticks, and the heat coming off of them was lovely, soothing something in Crowley that was simply not suited to the cooler days in the north.

The camp followers assigned to the laundry line were a mixture of angels and humans. He thought he might have glimpsed another demon defector down the line, but there was no time to go exchanging clades and ranks before Oladiel put a stick in his hand and told him to get busy stirring.

It was hot and tiring work, and the bottle of stale urine they kept next to the cauldron for bleaching purposes stank dreadfully, but the angel on duty with him gave him a cloth to tie over his face, and that helped.

 _Really, who dresses a standing infantry in cream, anyway?_ he thought resentfully.

Heaven did, that was who, and they weren't going to stop while they still had a company's worth of support staff to keep the jackets, kilts, spats and stockings nice and pale.

Around noon, a bell rang, and they were given a half hour break. Crowley looked around as the other laundry workers took out packets of food.

“We're meant to bring lunch from home,” said the angel who had been next to him. “Didn't someone tell you?”

“No,” said Crowley crossly. “Suppose himself was too busy.”

He never got very hungry in the first place, the advantages of a cold-blooded metabolism, but the angel offered him half a pasty hesitantly. No bet on what the meat inside was, and the newsprint it had been wrapped in left fine lines of type on the greasy crust, but it was better than nothing and more consideration than he had expected.

“Thanks,” he said. “I'll bring something tomorrow.”

The angel smiled, and Crowley was about to ask for her name before the bell rung again. Everyone groaned, rising up and getting back to the tubs, and this time Crowley ended up at the washing blocks, large slabs of smooth wood placed next to swill basins where the clothes came after the boil. After a brief soak in more soapy water, the individual garments were folded down and beaten with paddle-shaped washing bats to remove as much of the water as possible. It was tiresome and tiring, but Crowley had to admit that there was something cathartic about whacking something of Heaven that hard.

His partner this time was far less convivial than the last had been, a cool-eyed angel who watched him across the board with an unfriendly twist to his mouth.

“So you're Aziraphale's captive.”

“ _Lieutenant_ Aziraphale,” Crowley snapped, giving the folded jacket on the board an especially hard whack.

“You're a bit new to be a medal-chaser,” said the angel, and Crowley didn't need to know the specifics of the term to know what was implied, though he wondered how many medals his nervous lieutenant could have earned.

He was still musing on this when he went to turn the jacket he was hitting and his partner's wooden bat came down a hair's breadth from his hand. He pulled it back just in time and looked up into the angel's smirking face.

“Sorry,” the angel said, and Crowley bared his teeth in something that someone might call a smile if they had never seen one before.

He went back to his work, because honestly, it was to be expected. He was here for espionage, not making friends, though the angels were proving more friendly than predicted. The angel on cauldron duty with him hadn't been a bad sort, and then of course there was Aziraphale who was... all right, maybe not _friendly,_ but …

Kind.

He was kind, Crowley thought, frowning. He hadn't expected that in the least. It wasn't given to angels to be kind any more than it was given to demons. They were above it, literally. Kindness was for humans, the middle ground, it was below the holy host and beyond the fallen ranks …

This time, the angel's bat came down and caught just the tip of Crowley's finger, a smashing pain that made him yelp.

“What's the matter there?” called Oladiel, and Crowley fumed.

“Caught my finger under my bat,” he called back, not taking his eyes from the angel who smirked at him over the board.

“Clumsy,” the angel observed, and Crowley growled.

“Fuck yourself,” he hissed.

The third time he was ready for it, or, it might be said, he simply set the bait and waited for the angel to bite. He left his hand on the board and kept his head down as if simply concentrating on not breaking the buttons on the jacket he was beating.

When the angel's eyes flickered and his bat came down, Crowley yanked his hand back with ophidian quickness and brought his own bat down hard over the angel's wrist. He grinned as the angel's eyes bugged out, tilting his head to one side.

“Aww, is clumsiness catching?” he taunted.

He had expected to deal with bullying and taunts, to have to watch his back if this particular bully had friends. They always seemed to. He expected to be reprimanded and roundly cursed out, perhaps even beaten.

He did not expect the angel to launch himself straight over the board, wings flaring briefly to come down on Crowley with a furious shriek. The angel's full weight knocked Crowley on his back, and for a moment, he thought that it might be better to take what was coming to him. He didn't really want a reputation as any kind of fighter in the heavenly encampment, didn't want to escalate things.

Then the angel's hand, hooked into claws, swiped just short of his eyes, and all right, fuck that, time to escalate. Hissing furiously, Crowley brought his knee up hard straight into the angel's stomach and gained enough clearance to smash him in the jaw with his fist. The angel howled, and lashed out again, and by then there were shouts of confusion and anger all around them.

The bastard was strong enough that Crowley couldn't throw him off and he wasn't maddened enough to bite, but he managed another good two blows before there were hands pulling them apart.

“What in the name of the demiurge are you two doing?” Oladiel demanded. “You, demon, can you not do a single day's work without causing trouble?”

Crowley carefully did not struggle in his captors' hands, staying stubbornly silent. There was nothing he could say, and he assumed a look of sullen fury. Let them think him mute and insensible. Most of them barely knew demons could talk without grunts and hisses.

“He attacked me,” the angel said, but Crowley noticed with interest the other laundry workers weren't letting him up either. “He lunged at me for _no reason.”_

Oladiel frowned, but then there was a flurry of white feathers and cream jackets, and four angels descended from on high.

 _Impressive,_ Crowley had to admit, before he recognized fucking Gabriel among them. He hurriedly ducked his head, hoping the archangel wouldn't recognize him, his heart beating suddenly faster. Fuck, fuck, fuck...

“What's the matter?” Gabriel asked, frowning. “We just came in, and camp's in an uproar.”

“My apologies, sir,” said Oladiel. “Just an argument among the laundry workers.”

“Is that _your_ captive, Lieutenant?” asked an angel Crowley didn't recognize, and his heart stopped.

“Yes, it is,” said Aziraphale, and Gabriel or not, Crowley couldn't stop from raising his head to look.

Aziraphale was a principality through and through, a stone tower next to the storm of Gabriel and the lean and lupine forms of the two angels with them. Dominions, Crowley guessed, adding it to his mental accounting of the company's staff. Dominions weren't seen on Earth much anymore, that was interesting.

“Yes, Haviel. He is mine.”

Gabriel snorted.

“You need a better leash on him, Aziraphale. He looks like a biter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You really must keep him in line,” added the other dominion idly. There was something about that one's tone that sent a nasty chill up Crowley's spine, and he felt the angels holding him shift uneasily.

_Oh... oh fuck, I know that one, don't I?_

“Of course I will, sir,” said Aziraphale, something stiff in his tone. “He has only been in camp for a few days.”

“Still,” said the other, and the crowd shifted like wheat in a bad wind. Crowley resisted the urge to make himself as small as he could, because that never worked, not with so many eyes on him.

“I will see to it immediately,” Aziraphale continued, startling Crowley. It was tantamount to interrupting an outranking officer, not something he would have expected out of his lieutenant.

“With your permission, sir?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley shivered at the strange expression on his face. He had seen the angel flustered and furious and pleading, but this was different. He didn't know what this was, and his stomach turned over.

“Sure, whatever,” Gabriel said. “Just do a thorough job of it, okay? I have a tough enough time getting my jackets back in good shape from the laundry.”

A relieved laugh ran through the ranks, but there was no relief for Crowley. Aziraphale came forward without meeting his eyes and without a word, he took him by the arm and dragged him back towards the tent. Crowley bit back the urge to say he was coming already, but he hadn't seen Aziraphale like this before. He still couldn't tell what it was when the tent flap closed behind them, sealing them away in the best privacy to be had for miles.

“Lieutenant,” he said, unable to keep a plea from his voice. He wasn't scared, he _wasn't,_ he just hated not knowing, could never stand it.

Aziraphale shoved him towards the bed.

“Take your trousers down and bend over,,” he said, nearly shouted.

All right. Discipline. He could do this. He could, if only Aziraphale wasn't acting so strangely. He had thought that if Aziraphale had call to discipline him, he would be as faltering as he was when Crowley had faked a fucking on his bed, as shy and as in need of comfort. He hadn't expected this.

He was only so nervous because he didn't see it coming, of course that was it.

He was just bending over, trousers down and his hands braced on the mattress, when Aziraphale came to stand beside him. Crowley gasped as Aziraphale flipped up the tail of his tunic and dumped a cup of what felt like freezing cold water over his bare rear.

Crowley's breath stuttered, and then Aziraphale was bending down, his mouth next to Crowley's ear.

“Scream,” Aziraphale said desperately. “Scream as loudly as you can, _please.”_

Fear. It had had been fear that he couldn't read on Aziraphale's face.

Over his shoulder, Crowley watched as Aziraphale pulled his sheathed sword from the leather baldric worn over his shoulder, and his breath went shallow.

“You are _not_ going to cause trouble for me again, are you?” Aziraphale demanded, and Crowley nodded before he remembered himself.

“No, sir, I'm sorry, sir.”

“Not yet, you're not.”

If Crowley had hoped that it would be a sham beating, Aziraphale smacking the mattress, he was disabused of the notion as the sheathed sword came down across his thighs, hitting with a blunt and stunning force. Crowley didn't need Aziraphale's plea to scream; it hurt and he filled his lungs and howled.

The blows came with a metronome beat, slow and steady, and Crowley screamed until his throat was sore. Sooner than he would have thought, a kind of numbness spread from the area where he was struck. It still hurt, sting and thud combining to a panic-inducing agony, but there was something distant about it.

It seemed to go on forever, but it was over sooner than he thought it would be. There was a pause longer than the rest, and then Crowley's knees gave out. He would have hit the floor, but Aziraphale dropped the sword with a clatter, scooping Crowley up and laying him on his belly on his bed.

Crowley's hair was soaked with sweat and he had to push it aside to properly look at Aziraphale. He reckoned he wasn't at his best at this moment, but Aziraphale looked a wreck, eyes too wide and lips bitten hard enough Crowley could see a bit of blood.

Somehow, he managed a chuckle, reaching out to stroke Aziraphale's face.

“There. That wasn't so bad, was it?” he whispered through his sore throat.

Aziraphale looked as if he might cry, shaking away Crowley's hand.

“Don't,” he said. “I'm sorry. I am so very sorry. You mustn't forgive me.”

“I don't think forgiveness has much place between us, angel,” Crowley said. “Only tell me what _happened.”_

“That was Raziel,” Aziraphale replied, and that was enough.

Raziel, the Butcher out of Byblos, who had once crucified a demonic platoon and left them dying for a month. Fucking _Satan._

Crowley's mind raced because Raziel wouldn't be on Earth for a simple visit, but then he shifted and the bruises on his rear throbbed, hot and vicious.

“I'm not going to thank you,” he said. “but I know that's not as hard as you can hit.”

Aziraphale rose, composing himself until there was barely anything left of the angel he was getting to know.

“No,” Aziraphale said softly. “The cold water tightens the skin, and when hard blows land without any lead up, the bruises form fast and harden up. It's not protective, but it numbs out faster.”

Crowley looked at him, curious in spite of the pain.

“You sound like you know.”

“Of course I do. I had to be taught like any ranking officer.”

“And there's only one way to find out how much a caning with a sheathed sword hurts.”

Crowley didn't know why he felt sick.

“Yes.”

“I should return to the others,” Aziraphale said after a moment. “Just stay in the tent, don't go wandering.”

“'M not going far like this, really,” Crowley said, but Aziraphale didn't laugh.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered again, and Crowley closed his eyes against the gentle fingers that swept through his damp hair, that brushed the back of his neck just once before the angel was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of a discord chat where Crowley ends up under Aziraphale's protection as a camp follower. For some reason, laundry kept coming up. Not sure if this fic makes sense without that chat, but you know, whatever. One thing that I'm sad didn't make it into this fic is that you can use something called isinglass, the swim bladders of sturgeon, to starch fabric.
> 
> Anyway, good on you, UnsmilingChuck, for insisting on the correct amount of era-accurate laundry in your fic! It is noted and appreciated!


End file.
